Latest Tweet

Latest Media Releases

GOVERNMENT AND SA-BEST HIDE YOUTH TREATMENT ORDERS BILL FROM SCRUTINY BY PARLIAMENT

Yesterday in debate over the controversial and thoroughly discredited Controlled Substances (Youth Treatment Orders) Bill 2018, the Government and SA-Best voted together to stop the Bill being sent to a select committee and stopped the parliament from debating why a select committee is necessary.

The Bill has faced scathing criticism and opposition from the Law Society SA, the Commissioner for Children and Young People and the Child Development Council, the Guardian for Children and Young People, the Australian Medical Association (SA Branch), SACOSS, SA Network of Drug and Alcohol Services, and the Youth Affairs Council of SA. These stakeholder and community groups made it clear to members of Parliament that, at the very least, this Bill should face proper scrutiny through the select committee process. The upper house had the numbers (supported by the Greens, Labor, and John Darley), but the Liberals and SA-Best wouldn’t allow for the suspension of standing orders so that the motion could be put.

Greens MLC Tammy Franks, who moved the motion to send this Bill to a committee yesterday, stated that:

“It’s deeply disappointing that the Government is trying to force this Bill through, despite all of the warnings and concerns of the sector that will have to deal with its implementation and consequences.

“This Bill is in contravention of the human rights of children and young people. It locks people up and forces them through treatment, even though it has been proven again and again that this doesn’t work.

“We tried to give this Government another opportunity to look at the evidence, to listen to the community, and to listen to the experts, but together with SA-Best they shut it down. Then, when asked questions about this Bill, the Minister then variously threatened, argued conflicting points, and refused to directly answer question about the Bill and resorted instead to rhetoric attacking those who simply sought the scrutiny of a Bill before then withdrawing it for debate anyway.

“If the Government and SA-Best are so confident their controversial plan to lock kids up for drug addiction treatment will work, why did they use their votes yesterday to shut down debate on simply having a committee take a look at this over the summer?

The Marshall Government lost its second procedural showdown in a week in the SA Parliament yesterday when the Upper House suspended standing orders to condemn cuts to sexual health service SHINE SA, when The Greens’ motion backed by Labor, SA-Best and Advance SA against the Government’s protestations.

The motion condemned the $547,000 funding cuts made in the 18-19 Budget that will now see SHINE close their clinics in the northern and southern suburbs early next year.

Quotes attributable to Greens MLC Tammy Franks

This is the second time in a week the Government has lost control in Parliament because a Marshall Minister has a tin ear and has lost touch with community.

People’s sexual health needs won’t go away but without SHINE to service the young and vulnerable clients some of those needs early on they will likely become far more complex and also more expensive to treat.

The Minister’s comments last night that SHINE SA should "get creative" to offset the cuts – or curiously suggesting they consider using libraries as other services had done when facing cuts – were disturbing.

The Minister’s claims that these cuts will be met by MBS billing was also not correct. SHINE SA has been MBS billing since 2013, that very MBS billing was already offsetting previous budget cuts under Labor.

I would say Minister Wade needs to get a second opinion on these cuts, but last week he was offered 350 ‘second opinions’ and he still hasn’t listened to them. Surely the concerns last week of 350 medical professionals who signed an open letter against the SHINE cuts and asked to meet the Minister should have sparked some reaction. But even those 350 doctors are still waiting on their requested meeting with the Minister. I challenge the Minister to now meet with those doctors to hear from the medical coalface.

Greens MLC Tammy Franks has warned that the Marshall Liberal Government will face fierce opposition in the Upper House for its plans to “privatise, penalise and profit” as outlined in today’s state budget.

“This budget is a kick in the guts to those who are already struggling. It is clear that this Government and its budget will only widen inequality and retreat from the provision of essential services to those who need it most.

“The Treasurer has today boasted he is keeping the Liberal party’s promises but the people of South Australia did not vote to privatise our prisons or SA Pathology. Coming clean that they intended to sell off seven TAFE campuses or shortchange the state Murray Darling Basin Royal Commission would not have passed any pub test before the March 17 poll and we won’t be copping it in the Parliament now,” she concluded.

Greens SA MLC Tammy Franks has reintroduced her Bill to ban jumps racing today. The timing is fitting, as the 1st of August is taken to be the Southern Hemisphere birthday of all horses.

If the bill passed, a ban would take effect a year after the passage of the bill meaning 2019 would be the least season of jumps races in SA.

Quotes attributable to Ms Franks: It’s over a century since the last jumps race was held in Queensland, almost 30 years since a Senate Committee recommended it be phased out across the nation, and over 20 years since the NSW Parliament voted to ban it.

Only Victoria and South Australia still host jumps races and with good reason. It’s on the nose. Time and time again jumps racing has proven dangerous for jockeys and deadly for the horses. 19 more times deadly than flats racing and I cannot think of a better gift for these horses on their birthday than to finally ban this cruelty.

Punters and sponsors alike have been voting with their feet for some time on this issue and almost all of the 1,811 submissions to the 2016 Select Committee wanted to see the end of jumps racing, what they got was another reprieve (3 more years) for a part of the industry that almost all acknowledge is itself on its last legs. Today we wish the horses on their Southern Hemisphere birthday many happy returns and a legislated end to the cruelty once and for all next year.

That Select Committee excluded cross bench MPs and railed against a ban in its very formation but even that – with the odds stacked against a ban - gave the industry only three years to clean up its act. This is a new Parliament and the debate just got a fresh start and a new field.

Greens’ MLC Tammy Franks has challenged the Marshall Liberal Government’s move today to parachute a chairperson into the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Select Committee who, like all three of the Liberal appointments to the Committee, has no previous experience on that committee. By contrast, the Greens and Labor Committee members total over 12 years’ experience between the three of them.

Greens MLC Tammy Franks today introduced a Private Member’s Bill to State Parliament for the decriminalisation of sex work in South Australia stating it was time for SA to reflect the reality of the 21st century when it came to sex work.